The Master Magician (The Paper Magician Series Book 3)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  “She may be,” Mg. Bailey agreed, though he seemed to emphasize may without actually emphasizing it at all. Perhaps Ceony had imagined it.

  She wanted to say good-bye to Emery, to embrace him, to kiss the line of his jaw, but she certainly couldn’t with two witnesses—three if she counted the buggy driver, who had worked his way through half a fag while still seated in his automobile.

  Emery nodded to the other paper magician and to Bennet before telling Ceony, “Good luck. You know how to reach me in case you need anything.”

  Ceony nodded, feeling an unseen band of rubber stretch between her and Emery as he turned to go.

  “Good day, Magician Thane!” Bennet yelled after him. Emery waved politely before getting in the car. The driver dropped his burning cigarette out the window and turned back onto the road.

  Ceony frowned as the buggy drew away. Three weeks suddenly seemed a very long time.

  “Bennet, fetch that,” Mg. Bailey said, and Bennet—suitcase still in hand—rushed over to the fallen cigarette and stomped it out with his heel, then picked it up and pocketed it.

  Mg. Bailey headed back through the gates and into the house without further ado. Ceony hesitated, wondering if she should follow, but fortunately Bennet reappeared at her side and gestured toward the cobbled path. “This way, Ceony. It’s all right to call you that, isn’t it?”

  “It is my name,” Ceony said, letting herself relax. “You called me that at Praff, and I’m not a magician yet, besides.”

  Bennet smiled. “Neither am I. Obviously.” He cleared his throat. “Um, this is the front of the house; that window up there, in the corner on the third floor, is yours. Gets a little warm in the early afternoon if you don’t pull the shades.”

  Ceony nodded, taking in the grounds of the mansion. They seemed even larger now that she could see beyond the bushy perimeter. “It’s all very . . . impressive,” she said.

  “Isn’t it?” Bennet asked. “Unless you’ve lost something. It’s a pain to find things in there.”

  “Is it just you and Magician Bailey?”

  He nodded. “A maid comes by three times a week, if that counts for anything.”

  “Pets?”

  “No . . . Magician Bailey doesn’t like animals,” he answered, looking ahead at his tutor, whose quick strides had already pulled him to the front door. The Folder didn’t wait for either apprentice before letting himself in.

  “He’s a little standoffish,” Ceony said.

  At the same moment, Bennet asked, “Does Magician Thane keep pets?”

  “He’s allergic, but I do have a paper dog,” she said. She smiled. “His name is Fennel. He’s folded up in that case, actually.”

  “Oh, interesting! But no Bizzy, I take it,” he said, referring to the Jack Russell terrier Ceony had kept in her dorm at Tagis Praff.

  “No Bizzy. She’s back with my family now.”

  “I’m sure Fennel will be a treat. Just”—he paused—“keep him away from Magician Bailey. Just in case. I mean, Magician Bailey is great and all, but it’s better to be safe.”

  They reached the door, which Bennet opened for Ceony. A broad hallway, painted white with dark-stained oak floorboards underfoot, greeted them. An oriental rug of burgundy and navy covered most of the floor. At the end of the hall spiraled a set of white-banistered stairs. The left side of the hall opened onto a grand sitting room, complete with a fainting sofa and a pianoforte. A five-tiered crystal chandelier hung above a crystal table in the center of the room, upon which sat a tray of unused teacups. It looked very much the opposite of Emery’s front room—surfaces were uncluttered, or they only sported one or two pieces of show, such as a vase or music box. It all looked rather immaculate.

  The right side of the hallway opened onto a smaller room. It had a small table with four chairs and a granite fireplace but didn’t appear to be meant for dining. Perhaps snacking? Ceony wasn’t sure what sort of rooms could fill a house this size, particularly one that was only home to two people.

  She tore her eyes away, trying not to stare. “So you signed up for paper?”

  Bennet laughed an awkward, airy laugh. “Not really. I was assigned it by Magician Aviosky. She didn’t give me much room for negotiation.”

  “She didn’t give me any, either,” Ceony agreed. Bennet seemed pleased to hear that he was not alone in his experience.

  She wanted to add, But I’m glad it turned out this way, but Bennet interrupted the thought with, “Well, I’ll start the tour here. Down this way is the leisure library and the guest lavatory, as well as Magician Bailey’s office, but don’t go in there unless invited, and if the door’s closed, don’t knock. He doesn’t like being disturbed when he’s working.”

  “Working on what?” Ceony asked, followed by, “Where is Magician Bailey?” Shouldn’t he be giving her the tour?

  “Um,” Bennet said, glancing up and down the hallways on either end of the spiral stairs. “I think he’s in his office. He was in there before you came; he’s getting ready for your testing. There are preparation materials of some kind. He couldn’t really tell me what.”

  Ceony nodded slowly. It made sense, at least. But so far Pritwin Bailey’s reclusiveness made Emery look like a socialite.

  “Down here”—Bennet gestured to the left—“is the kitchen, the casual dining hall, and the formal dining hall. You can tell the difference by the table size and the lighting. The formal dining hall has color-shifting glass and a longer table.”

  “Oh,” Ceony said. Color-shifting glass? That was a spell she didn’t know. She’d have to look it up and learn how to cast it. Her youngest sister, Margo, would faint to have such a spell in her bedroom!

  “The chef will be here in about an hour,” he added. “Past the stairs—”

  “Chef?” Ceony asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bennet said. He smiled and brushed hair off his forehead with his free hand. He certainly was a handsome man. “Magician Bailey has one come in every weekday, and on weekends we fend for ourselves.”

  “I can cook,” Ceony offered as Bennet moved to the base of the spiral stairs. “I don’t mind. I enjoy it.”

  “Really?” Bennet asked. He glanced from her face to her feet and back again. “This weekend, maybe? Magician Bailey won’t cancel his cook . . . Besides, I’m sure you’ll be busy. With your preparations for the test and all.”

  Ceony nodded.

  “Past the stairs is the sunroom, and through there the greenhouse, though I only have a few plants thriving at the moment. Magician Bailey hasn’t tried to grow anything for a while. It’s a lot of work. And there”—he pointed to a back corner of the house with his suitcase hand—“is a storage room and the hallway to the servants’ quarters, which we don’t use.”

  Ceony committed the layout to memory, though the last bit proved difficult, as she hadn’t seen the rooms herself. The house was so large she wondered if even her quick memory would be able to master it.

  Bennet continued the tour through the second and third floors, pointing out the music room, the technical library (where all his study materials lay, along with two very large maps), a few guest bedrooms, his bedroom, a drawing room, trophy room, deck, and study. Farther in, he indicated another drawing room, two “dressing rooms,” a materials room for magic crafting, a private sitting room, a study just for apprentices, and an assortment of different-sized lavatories. A small one resided just outside Ceony’s bedroom. If the sheer, needless vastness of the mansion didn’t make Ceony’s head spin, the idea of having her own bathing room did. Even at Tagis Praff she’d never had that luxury.

  Bennet opened the door to her room, which had indeed been overwarmed by the afternoon sun. It had a long off-white rug running perpendicular to the dark oak floorboards, which readily creaked under their footsteps. A rather large bed with rose-colored blankets sat in the middle of the room, extending out from the length of wall between two westward-facing windows. A dainty glass table and two white chairs for private br
eakfasting were arranged in one corner. Against the wall with the door rested a large wardrobe, and across the corner from it, a tall dresser.

  It was one of the smaller bedrooms Ceony had seen in the mansion, but it was easily two and a half times the size of her room at the cottage.

  The cottage. Ceony missed it already.

  Bennet set her suitcase down on one of the chairs. “I’ll give you a chance to settle in, and I’ll call you down to dinner, unless you’d like to eat alone in your room.”

  “No, no, I’ll come down,” she said, feeling a little lost in the wide space.

  “Do you like it? I could move you,” Bennet offered. “I made sure to dust it this morning, and the sheets are clean. Is it too hot? Oh, I forgot the pitcher and basin.”

  Ceony smiled. “It’s lovely, and I don’t need a pitcher with a lavatory right next door,” she said. “Thank you. It’s just different, that’s all.”

  Bennet nodded, seeming pleased. “All right. My window is just below yours, so if you want to send a paper messenger to me for anything, please do.”

  “Perfect,” Ceony said.

  Bennet hesitated a moment, then nodded and excused himself. Ceony took the time to hang up her clothes and organize her personal items until dinner, which Mg. Bailey took in his office. Afterward, Ceony arranged her study materials in her dresser drawers. She could use one of the desks in the apprentices’ study tomorrow. She slid her charm necklace around her neck and under her blouse, then reanimated Fennel, who sniffed about his new surroundings with a papery vigor.

  Letting out a sigh, Ceony leaned against the mattress of the bed, surprised at how soft it felt. The sun had just begun to set, but perhaps she would turn in early and get a fresh start tomorrow. She did have a lot of work ahead of her.

  A faint tapping on the rightmost window caught her attention. Lifting its curtains, she spied a turquoise paper butterfly hovering outside the glass. A message from Bennet?

  It took a few heaves to open the seldom-used windowpane. Once she did, the butterfly fluttered in and gracefully landed on the glass table.

  “Cease,” she said, stilling its wings. She turned it over and unfolded it, recognizing the handwriting hidden inside its body immediately. Bennet hadn’t sent this spell.

  Emery had.

  CHAPTER 8

  CEONY CAREFULLY UNFOLDED the rest of the butterfly. The message had been scripted in pen—the copper-toned one Emery kept on his nightstand. The beautiful, flawless curves of each stroke made her smile before her mind even sorted out the words.

  I hope this finds your room and not the housemaid’s. There’s nothing like jam and cold bread to make a man appreciate a woman.

  Setting the butterfly down, Ceony retrieved a few pieces of paper she had packed into her bag—it was always smart for a Folder to carry a personal supply—and wrote out her response in the center of a white square.

  You wouldn’t be in poor company if you hired a cook. Prit does! I need to write a letter to Mg. Aviosky and thank her for assigning me to you and not him. I don’t know how Bennet has kept such a stiff upper lip, working with him so long.

  She paused, wondering if she should be careful with names. Shrugging, she Folded the square into a crane, slipping a farthing into its belly to give it some weight, should a nightly wind try to interrupt its course. She then Folded a link to a chain spell—only one, for the crane was small—out of a portion of the butterfly Emery had sent.

  “Lock,” she said, and the link tightened around the crane’s torso without interfering with its wings. The spell would ensure that only the man whose handwriting was on the chain would be able to unfold the crane. Anyone else would destroy it trying.

  Uttering instructions to the bird, Ceony sent it out her window and watched it fly off through the last tendrils of sunlight.

  Fennel whined at her ankles—an unsurprising complaint, for she had neglected him most of the day. If nothing else, he would provide some entertainment while Ceony waited for her paper charm to fly across London.

  Lighting a few extra candles—the mansion didn’t have electric lights in most of the guestrooms—Ceony threw a knotted stocking back and forth for the paper dog for several minutes before slipping into the lavatory to wash her face and change into her night things. She tied a robe around herself even though she had no intention of leaving her room—one could never be too careful about avoiding Peeping Toms in a new place.

  Fennel huffed at her, and in the spaces between his enchanted breaths, Ceony noticed how silent the large house really was. Someone could drop a fork in the kitchen two floors down and she’d hear it from up here.

  She rubbed gooseflesh from her arms. With his room directly beneath hers, Bennet had the benefit of hearing her floorboards squeak.

  Ceony’s eyelids were growing heavy by the time a second, gray butterfly flew through her cracked window and landed gracefully on the breakfast table. Like she’d done with her crane, Emery had fastened a privacy link about the spell’s body. His managed to look much more refined than her own, despite sporting all the same Folds. She unfolded the butterfly and read:

  It will do wonders for your patience. Don’t let him postpone your test, Ceony. You’re ready. I have every confidence in you.

  And I do hope you’re not focusing too strongly on young Bennet’s upper lip.

  Ceony smiled as she reread the message, rubbing her thumb over the coppery mark where Emery had smudged the word young.

  Abandoning the table, Ceony pulled her pink lipstick from its place in the set of drawers and carefully smoothed it on, then pressed her lips to the center of another square of paper.

  She penned Only yours on the sheet before Folding it into a bird and whispering, “Breathe.”

  It appeared that Mg. Bailey’s hired chef did not report for breakfast, so early the next morning Ceony acquainted herself with the kitchen. The room was enormous, of course, with two ovens and three enchanted iceboxes, a bar with stools, a wine cabinet, and a long, casual table built to hug the far corner. The cupboards all matched the dark wood stain of the floor, and the counters even boasted a small preparation sink in addition to the normal one.

  Ceony had started eggs and hollandaise sauce when Bennet, hair still wet from a bath and with newspaper in hand, came in. “I see you’ve situated yourself well,” he said, stifling a yawn with his first two knuckles. He pulled over a stool and sat, spreading the Social News section before him. “What, um, are you making?”

  Ceony held up an egg. “Would you like some?”

  Bennet’s shoulders sagged as he let out a long sigh. “Yes, please. I’m starving and I love hollandaise.”

  So does Emery, Ceony almost said, but she bit back the comment quickly enough. She substituted, “I’ll try not to burn it. Should I make enough for Magician Bailey?”

  “Magician Bailey already ate,” sounded a third voice from the hall. Pritwin Bailey walked into the kitchen, well groomed and looking just as pale as he had yesterday, a piece of paper rolled like a scroll in his right hand. His tone was chiding.

  “Good morning,” Ceony offered, trying to be pleasant. She needed to make a good impression on the Folder, even if he seemed uninterested in impressing her. “I apologize for not being up earlier.”

  Mg. Bailey scoffed. “Does Thane use you as a maid, then? Cooking his meals, cleaning his windows, folding his laundry?”

  Ceony almost swallowed her tongue to withhold the retort that tried to slip out. Then, to her dismay, the faintest blush betrayed her—she did do all those things, actually. But that didn’t make her maidly.

  “I just wanted to bestow the gesture,” she said. Her voice sounded sweet enough.

  “Hmm,” Mg. Bailey replied. He set the rolled-up paper beside the stove. “I’m not one to waste time, Miss Twill. Here is a list of projects you’ll need to complete before I will test you.”

  Ceony dared to stop stirring the sauce long enough to unfurl the paper. A cold shock struck her chest. “There
has to be fifty or sixty items on this!” she exclaimed, reading over the bizarre requests. #1. Something to open a door. #2. Something that breathes. #14. Something to hide the truth.

  “Fifty-eight, specifically,” Mg. Bailey said, his face as stiff as his thin frame. “Standard. I suggest you get started when you’re finished with your . . . gesture.”

  Ceony set the list down and stirred her hollandaise before it could stick to the bottom of its pan. “I need to Fold something for each number?”

  “It is a Folder’s test, Miss Twill,” Mg. Bailey said while raising his eyebrow. To Bennet, he said, “Your report on chapters fifteen through twenty-one is due at noon.”

  “I’ll have it to you,” Bennet said.

  “And your lesson at one.”

  “Of course.”

  Mg. Bailey nodded and turned from the room, not allowing Ceony another second of his time.

  Ceony released a grumble and took the saucepan off the stove. Intolerable! I almost don’t blame Emery for picking on him at school.

  “Is it done?” Bennet asked excitedly. At least Mg. Bailey’s sharpness didn’t penetrate his apprentice’s good humor.

  As Ceony lifted her head from the sauce, however, she glimpsed an article title in the lower-left-hand corner of Bennet’s newspaper: “Magicians’ Cabinet to Rule on Opposite-Sex Apprenticeships.”

  “I . . .” she trailed, turning her head to try and read the script, but the letters were too small. “Done enough,” she said. “Could I see that paper for a moment?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Abandoning the saucepan, Ceony scooped up the page in question and skimmed the article, pausing on one paragraph in particular:

  “It is, in part, a means of decency,” said Mg. Long. “We’ve had several complaints in regards to mixed sexes working together, from apprentices to magicians to even family members. When the ruling is approved, and I believe it will be, any apprenticeships not involving same-sex pairings will be split and reassigned. In today’s England, such measures must be taken before scandal erupts.”